Ironclad Evidence

## Chapter 26: Ironclad Evidence

Lin Xinyi slowly walked over to Uchida's body.

Uchida still lay quietly on the ground. This victim of bullying, who had received insufficient attention during his life, finally garnered the belated attention of the police and society in death.

"Gloves."

Like a busy chief surgeon during an operation, Lin Xinyi directly extended his hand, asking the police officers present for tools.

"Right here." A young officer hurried forward, carrying a Forensic Investigation Kit.

Looking closely, it was Officer Komatsu, the familiar face he'd met that morning, who also worked as a part-time coroner.

When Lin Xinyi wasn't around, he acted as the coroner, but now that Lin Xinyi was present, Officer Komatsu automatically demoted himself to the role of a kit-carrying assistant.

He opened the toolkit and respectfully handed Lin Xinyi a pair of gloves.

"I need two pairs."

Lin Xinyi looked helplessly at this incredibly green "colleague."

"Uh…" Officer Komatsu's face reddened, and he quickly supplied Lin Xinyi with the extra gloves.

Lin Xinyi deftly put on the gloves and then gave Officer Komatsu a meaningful look:

"Let me handle the external examination this time."

"You can just write down what I say, in order."

"Alright!" Officer Komatsu readily agreed, as he himself didn't know how to conduct the examination anyway.

At this point, Lin Xinyi finally began to act.

He didn't rush to reveal the truth of the case. Instead, he took the opportunity to slowly teach Officer Komatsu the steps for an external body examination.

Otherwise, if the police's coroner continued to be so incompetent…

It was truly quite worrying.

An external examination follows a standard procedure. By going through the steps from beginning to end, even if one can't discern the truth, it at least helps to record all the clues.

"You can fill in the victim's name, examination location, and examination time yourself."

"Then, first measure the ambient temperature and the relative humidity of the examination environment."

Lin Xinyi took out a thermometer and hygrometer from the toolkit and performed some measurements:

"Ambient temperature, 35.5 degrees."

"Relative humidity, 46%."

Officer Komatsu nodded in agreement, scribbling down the notes on paper beside him.

"Next, we'll start with a few macroscopic observations:"

Lin Xinyi took out a measuring tape from the toolkit and carefully measured:

"Body length: 161 cm."

"Skin pale, no jaundice, normal development, good nutrition, no limb deformities."

"No livor mortis. No rigor mortis. No signs of decomposition. Muscle relaxation upon digital pressure."

"Body temperature… we'll skip that for now."

The best places to measure body temperature are the rectum and liver, and with so many people watching, it was inconvenient to check.

"After noting these items, we'll begin examining each part of the body."

"We'll start from the head here, examining from top to bottom."

"First, the head and face:"

"Hair, black, short layered cut, 8 cm long on top."

"Auricle, no abnormalities. External auditory canal, no abnormalities."

"External nose, abrasions present. Nasal cavity, no abnormal secretions observed."

Lin Xinyi had actually drifted slightly off-topic.

He had said he would use evidence to put Ishikawa behind bars, but now he was using the opportunity of the autopsy to give Officer Komatsu an on-site lesson.

However, no one present questioned his thoroughness; instead, they watched with great interest.

This was because Lin Xinyi's style was different from all previously famous detectives.

He primarily focused on the body when handling cases, and his investigative methods were exactly like this: clear and orderly, like a factory assembly line, extremely standardized.

Other detectives were like the so-called "master craftsmen," excelling through difficult-to-replicate manual techniques.

Lin Xinyi, on the other hand, was an industrialized production line, with strict standards and clear procedures.

"Pay attention, the important part is coming."

Just as everyone was watching intently and Officer Komatsu was listening carefully, Lin Xinyi suddenly emphasized his tone.

While measuring the wound with a ruler taken from his toolkit, he calmly stated:

"There's a 2.0 cm x 0.3 cm laceration on the forehead."

"On the left side of the forehead, extending to the outer corner of the left eyebrow, there's a 4.0 cm x 3.0 cm depressed skull fracture, accompanied by two lacerations measuring 1.0 cm x 0.6 cm and 2.0 cm x 1.0 cm respectively."

"None of the above wounds show signs of bleeding, swelling, or tissue contraction, and they all appear yellowish-brown."

As he spoke, he deliberately paused his description and looked at Officer Komatsu.

As expected, Komatsu stared back at him blankly.

He's practically spoon-fed the answer, and this guy still hasn't figured it out.

"Sigh."

Lin Xinyi let out a helpless sigh:

"The deceased has a skull fracture, and the facial injuries are concentrated, indicating they were formed in a single event."

"Combined with the extensive abrasions on the exposed parts of the limbs, it can pretty much be concluded that these injuries were caused by a fall from a height."

"In other words, the deceased did indeed fall from a building."

Finally understanding, Ishikawa, who was standing nearby, immediately growled in a hurried tone:

"Doesn't that mean Uchida committed suicide by jumping?"

"A-and is there still a problem?"

"Of course there is." Lin Xinyi temporarily gave up on teaching Officer Komatsu; it was obvious this guy was a complete rookie who couldn't be brought up to speed anytime soon.

He looked coldly at Ishikawa, focusing his energy on revealing the truth:

"It's true that the deceased fell from a building."

"But I never said he jumped from the building alive."

"Because, as I just mentioned—"

"Although the injuries on the body surface are consistent with those from a high fall, the wounds on his head and face and the abrasions on his body mostly appear yellow or yellowish-brown, without any vital reactions such as bleeding, swelling, or tissue contraction."

Vital Reaction refers to the defensive response that occurs locally and throughout the body when a person suffers violent injury while still alive.

However, once a person dies, all bodily functions cease. Any injuries sustained by external force at that point will present very differently from injuries sustained while alive.

"Ishikawa, do you think your trick is very clever?"

"Any Forensic Officer can determine whether the deceased was injured before or after death simply by checking if the wounds show vital reactions."

"And in this case, the deceased clearly did not die from a fall from a height."

"His true cause of death is to be found here."

Lin Xinyi produced iron-clad evidence, proving that the deceased had not died from jumping off a building at all.

Then, he gently lifted the deceased's head slightly with his hand, allowing everyone to see his neck:

"Faint subcutaneous hemorrhages are visible on the neck, distributed on both sides of the larynx, clearly indicating a violent strangulation mark."

"This suggests that the deceased's neck was forcefully grasped by someone while he was alive."

"W-what about that?"

Ishikawa had already thought of an excuse for this:

"I beat up Uchida with Aoki a while ago."

"Although I choked him, I didn't kill him—it was just a normal fight."

He directly admitted to his bullying behavior.

But at the same time, Ishikawa completely distanced himself from Uchida's death.

After all, the presence of strangulation marks only proved that he had choked Uchida, but it couldn't prove that Uchida was choked to death by him.

But Lin Xinyi just said to him coldly:

"Don't delude yourself."

"Do you really think I can only see simple strangulation marks?"

"If I can't even confirm the true cause of death, then I've wasted my studies."

With that, he leaned down again and carefully propped open the deceased's eyelids with his hand:

"As you can see, the deceased's eyelids and bulbar conjunctiva are congested, accompanied by dense petechial hemorrhages."

"What is this? Why would there be such bleeding?"

"This type of petechial hemorrhage is related to increased vascular permeability, capillary rupture, and elevated blood pressure caused by asphyxia and hypoxia, often appearing at the time of asphyxia or within 15 to 30 seconds."

"Furthermore, the deceased's face shows symptoms of congestion, with a cyanotic, purplish-blue complexion."

"This is because the deceased's neck was compressed while he was alive, leading to obstructed venous return in the head and face, severe blood stasis, and increased reduced hemoglobin in the blood, resulting in cyanosis and swelling of the face."

Lin Xinyi's gaze was like a sword, piercing Ishikawa's already unstable psychological defenses:

"What I just described are the basic symptoms of death by asphyxiation."

"With these symptoms, plus the already confirmed high-fall injuries that occurred post-mortem—"

"That's enough to prove the deceased died from mechanical asphyxiation caused by external force, not from jumping to his death."

"And the killer who caused his death…"

"...won't be hard to find at all."

Lin Xinyi lifted the deceased's hand, showing everyone his fingertips:

"The deceased's wrists show clear signs of resistance and restraint injuries, which means he resisted when the killer assaulted him."

"Although he died, his resistance wasn't entirely in vain."

"At the very least, he left evidence under his fingernails."

"There are skin flakes from the killer's skin under his nails. By identifying the DNA from those skin flakes, we can pinpoint the killer's identity."

"And that killer probably still has scratch marks on his body from the deceased's resistance, right?"

"I…"

Ishikawa's face changed, and he instinctively covered his arm, which was covered in bloody marks.

"S-So what if there are scratches?"

"I told you, I beat Uchida up before, so it's not strange for his nails to have my skin flakes, is it?"

"Idiot!"

Lin Xinyi was so angered by this stubborn killer that he almost laughed:

"Haven't I already proven Uchida's true cause of death?"

"Since he died from homicidal asphyxiation, not from suicide by jumping…"

"...then these skin flakes are enough to serve as crucial evidence to identify the killer!"

"Ishikawa…"

A different kind of pressure entered his voice:

"With such ironclad evidence before you, what else do you have to say?"

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